Social media now even more of a morass

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/07/2023 (1146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Does anyone else feel like they don’t know how to use social media anymore?

I asked that same question on Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter, which launched last week and already has more than 100 million users.

Meta, the company that owns both Facebook and Instagram, got into microblogging after Elon Musk made an absolute hash of Twitter.

Joining a new social media platform always feels a bit like you’re visiting a new country, except in this case the new country you’re visiting isn’t just new to you, it’s new to everyone. There’s no language in which to become fluent yet.

What are we calling things on Threads? On Twitter, we’re tweeting tweets. On Threads we’re doing what, threading throughts?

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I hate Threads but here I am, throughting.

Signing up for yet another social media platform when I’m actively trying to divest myself from social media feels icky and the fact that I’ve spent any time whatsoever thinking about my “Threads presence” is doubly so.

I don’t love that most of the social media sites I’m on are now owned by the same company — which, by the way, will soon be blocking links to the content I actually care about creating.

I also don’t love feeling like I’m some sort of pawn to be data-harvested caught in the middle of a war of egos between two billionaires who keep threatening to cage fight each other. (The world is so unspeakably dumb right now.)

I will concede that Threads feels pretty friendly at this moment in time, as everyone self-consciously tries to figure it out.

There are no direct-messaging capabilities, so everyone just has to post their guts on the main feed. Threads kind of reminds me of early MySpace in terms of vibe. MySpace had MySpace Tom so you would always have at least one friend upon sign-up; Threads allows you to follow everyone you already follow on Instagram.

When I signed up for Threads — which is almost diabolically easy to do if you have an Instagram account — I already had 80 followers.

But Threads is also a snooze. The problem is, it has no discernible tone, which is perhaps why people seem confused about how to show up on it. It sort of looks and feels like Twitter — except with Instagram’s fonts and branding — but the snark and pith that defined Twitter has been replaced by the earnestness and banal affirmations endemic to Influencer Instagram.

Hashtags aren’t used, so you can neither find nor participate in the Discourse Du Jour as easily.

Threads is as if the colour beige became a social media platform. It’s Instagram without the pretty pictures — and Instagram needs the pretty pictures. Otherwise, it’s boring, and it’s already pretty boring.

Is there even a good social media platform anymore? Facebook is a wasteland of multi-level marketing schemes and conspiracy theories. Neighbourhood Facebook groups were OK until they became sites of low-key racial profiling; the “sketchy person in HOODIE” post is a genre unto itself.

Yes, you can say Musk ruined Twitter but, let’s be honest, he really just had to take it over the finish line. Twitter has been a derelict bridge for trolls for a long time.

Even TikTok, for all its highly entertaining, trend-driving, weirdo charms, is, at its core, an algorithmic time-suck.

And on all of these platforms, the comments range from abrasive to abusive. It’s only a matter of time before Threads devolves into the same.

Because that’s the thing: it is the same. They’re all the same. Sometimes I don’t even know which one I’m on. They blur together, like one giant Infinite Scroll. People are screenshotting Tweets and posting them on Instagram and Facebook; TikToks are being shared as Instagram Reels. Everybody’s drinking out of that same giant water bottle on every platform.

This isn’t just millennial agita about having to learn yet another new social media platform, though the “ugghhhhhh nooooo” feeling was strong. It’s the fact that this shiny new social media platform isn’t actually new. And eventually, it won’t be so shiny, either.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com